Messier 81

[AstroDan]

Hi everyone,

The weather in the Pacific Northwest is finally clearing up, but unfortunately I haven't been able to enjoy much of it. Luckily last year was great, and I still have some leftover data to work with. This image set was quite disappointing due to some issues with the flat frames, but I stuck with this this week, and found a result I like. This is 36x5 minutes (3 hours) of frames with my Canon 6D at iso 1600 through a 14" Meade LX200 at f10. Due to the flat issues I had to crop down quite heavily, so it's a bit of a close up... of a close up. I stacked and processed in Pixinsight, and made two small tweaks in Lightroom.

Let me know if there are any adjustments I should make, as I said it was a bit of a beast to work with.




M81



Cheers,

Dan

(If anyone is curious why I have it in portrait, the first attempt at the data was both terrible, and landscape, so I decided to switch it up)

 

[Rutgerbus]

Just amazing. That F/10 is slowing you down though....but if you can get 5 minute subs with susch pinpoint stars that wouldn't be a problem I guess

 

[Vishy_b]

Hi Dan,

Good details captured.

Regards, Vishy

 

[anilketkar]

Very nice image, Dan. I love the details and the colors. Well done! ..... Anil

 

[AstroDan]

Thank you for the kind comments Rutger, Vishy, and Anil.

Rutger, I completely agree, and I will (shamelessly) admit that given our sky conditions out here I am wildly oversampled, so using a reducer would be worthwhile. The main reason that we haven't gone that route with the 14" is that our current (cheap) reducer throws halos around bright stars, and more expensive dedicated options are not a great fit as we are in the process of upgrading to a different tube.

I can only imagine how much easier gathering data would be at f6.3, as it would mitigate some of the tracking requirements. That being said, this image has a bit of an exaggerated result, as I had to severely crop the field due to some flat issues.

Thanks for the comments,

Dan

 

[MarioSS]

Wow! Very nice image Dan.

 

[chris gunn]

I take it this is a large focal length!

Interesting thank you. Try and gather more light!